Posted on March 25, 2015 by Jenny Cromack

It can be hard sometimes to fit exercise into your day, everyone has busy lives. It’s easy to keep putting it off…..I’ll go tomorrow, I’ll go next week, I’ll start next monday. Ultimately if you want to improve your health, lose some fat or gain of muscle, you’re going to have to fit exercise into your day. Here are our top 5 easy ways to fit exercise into your day.

1. Ramp up the intensity: Exercise doesn’t have to take long, recent research has shown that you can get benefits from as little as 15s sprinting. No you’re not going to achieve your goals over night training like this but its 100 x better than doing nothing. Intensity is the key rather than duration, so make sure you’re pushing yourself hard. Likewise if you’re trying to build some muscle complete drop sets, it will take a fraction of the time and produce similar results. I’m confident everyone can find 15 minutes in their day.

2. Keep your gym kit close by: Our personal training clients who  travel frequently always carry their gym kit. You’re sometimes only one cancelled meeting, one delayed flight, one postponed appointment away from a run. No it’s not going to happen every day, but once in 2 weeks does sound quite likely, so seize the opportunity! You may even finish work early and what better way to spend those 15-20 minutes than some hard intervals to de-stress from the day. You know it makes sense.

3. Wake up 20 minutes earlier: Yes, I’m sure this sounds horrible and obviously if you’re already waking up at 5am this isn’t going to work. However if you get to bed 20 mins earlier instead of watching EastEnders (Jenny’s favourite!) you’ve not lost any sleep and you’ve gained 20 minutes of exercise. Alternatively, if you are spending any time watching TV and complaining about not having time to train you’ve got to ask yourself if training is something your interested in doing, are you really bothered about your goals? Quitters make excuses, successful people make solutions.

4. Become a ‘Stairmaster’: Simply stop taking elevators, even if you have to climb 10 flights of stairs, a recent study showed the participants climbing 15m worth of stairs 5 times a week burned  302 extra calories when using every step, if you take steps in twos they burnt 266 extra calories. So take stairs whenever you can and step on each step, maximise every second. This simple task can blitz 1000 calories a month easy, thats around 4lbs of fat a year. Or 2 and a half stone in 10 years. Bring on those steps we say!!

5. Walk to your errands: If your errands are not more than two miles away why not power walk your errands, you take your phone and keep plugged into work, you’re saving the environment and improving your health all in one go. Winner!

So there you go, 5 easy ways to fit exercise into your day. No excuses now! Go for it!